Trust Is Hard To Come By For Those Weary Of Love's Wars

SINGLES

'I just wanted to know who you are,'' the caller snarled, so angry he could barely utter the words.

He hated the column last month that aired the opinions of a group of 40ish single women. The consensus among these women: Much of the midlife dating scene is a disaster. And men are to blame.

The caller, apparently a 40something man himself, harrumphed that those women were probably a figment of someone's imagination. They weren't.

Too bad he wasn't. He hung up.

The call was unpleasant, but it wasn't a surprise. Any time you allow single people of one sex to air their frustrations about single people of the other sex, it's bound to raise hackles and launch a debate.

And some of the accusations from those women were very stinging and specific: that over-40 men prefer under-40 women; that over-40 men are commitment-phobic; that over-40 men can't handle women who have taken charge of their lives and careers.

Ouch.

Several other men also responded - by mail - to the single women's complaints. But most of these guys weren't angry. They wanted to say, hey, it's not so easy being a single man at midlife, either. Particularly when men are so misunderstood.

Both Wendell, 45, of Orlando, and Bob, 40, of Harrisburg, Pa., felt compelled to make the distinction between man and beast - a distinction they aren't sure many women make.

From Wendell, a man whose marriage ended after 20 years and complains of a flattened heart (due to stomping): ''We have feelings, too . . . We are not the animals and cruel individuals most women think we are. There are some of us who really care.''

From Bob, who said he wonders (really) where all the flowers have gone: ''We too need the love and all the other needs women, at least in the press, claim their counterparts aren't providing . . . We aren't animals and we are just as sensitive, and in need, and socially violated, as these women claim to be.''

Not all the men who responded were defensive. Some were genuinely empathetic to the plight of single women their age.

Like many of his female peers, Jack, an almost-40 Maitland man, isn't into the bar scene. He is recently separated, en route to a divorce, and convinced that all the ''nice'' women are married. ''Even worse, I don't know how to go about trying to disprove that.''

So, where does that leave us?

On the one hand, we have single women over 40 who are convinced their male peers aren't responsive to them. On the other hand, we have single men over 40 who feel misunderstood, maligned and misused by such conclusions.

If Morton Downey Jr. were still taping his show, no doubt he would have booked the whole bunch of them and whipped up a visual and verbal war between the sexes.

But that's not going to do much for either side. Single men and women at 40 and beyond have more than their fair share of war wounds from previous relationships. They want to avoid further battles and find some peace.

Why is it so hard to find?

Bob from Pennsylvania may have a clue: ''It must first boil down to a matter of trust, for surely few our age are willing to risk much.''